Lovely pic, Nell! I love violas of any variety and have them in all my beds. The johnny-jump-ups are my favs so I allow them to reseed any where they like. The larger pansy varieties reseed as well, but I usually end up moving them since they take up more room and get so big here. I still have a blue variety going strong under the 'Livin Easy' roses (orange). They generally die back in August when we warm up and stay that way for a few weeks, then they come back in Sept. and go all winter until the first snow. Some of them even stay around until spring when they look a bit ratty. I then give them a haircut and they're soon blooming again. So they are nearly year round bloomers for in my gardens. Y'all know I love roses but I often think I could be quite content with just a huge bed of violas under the sycamore trees. : ) Diana

Obsessions? In fiction? I think there's an elephant (or maybe a whale) in the room that no one seems to be looking at. Of course, I'm talking about the one, the only ....Moby Dick. If there ever was an idee fixe, it would be in that book. How about the Sherlock Holmes adventure The Adventure of the Six Napoleons? Yes, obsession was a red herring but it did make an appearance. Ahhhh........ and talking about obsessions ....Shadow of the Wind. I'm thinking that wanting to burn ALL of the existing copies of an extremely rare book would be considered obsessive? How about ...... Club Dumas by Perez-Reverte? Obsessing about books is a worthwhile obsession, is it not? (Actually, I think most of his books deal with obsessions in one form or another. There was one about an obsession with fencing, one about an obsession with maps ....) And what about Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco? Belbo was obsessed about that plan of theirs, was he not? And how can I forget? Patrick Suskind's Perfume? Obsessed about scents .... and how to capture them. Truly one of the more bizarre books I've read. And, ummm... can someone clarify if what is being sought are books that include obsessions or books written by authors who have obsessions?!

Chris, Farmers' Almanac, I think, has our frost dates as April 14 and October 22nd. I think Dave's Garden is a bit more accurate from experience, at least for our area. I very much like their moon sowing articles and guides, and their growing guides are very informative. Their weather forecast always seems to be fairly good as well considering how far in advance it is made. I guess the groundhog has predicted 6 more weeks of winter. I have a feeling this spring is going to be very sporadic, as it has been all winter. I kind of hope that it won't be like spring in 2014 where we woke up to 2-3" of snow on May 3rd. Not saying we'll get that, but the point is how sporadic that spring was. It was awful screwy lol. I notice they're calling for drought this summer as well. We had a very wet/cool summer last year, hardly topping 80 other than a few exceptions, such as late July, early June, and late Sept., mainly because all it did was RAIN!! I wouldn't mind a break from that so that Septoria Leaf Spot goes down, but I won't wish for what I don't want. Drought could cause quite a few other issues. I worked on my "greenhouse" a bit. It hit 40 today, and the temperature inside the cover while being vented ever so slightly was about 70-75 F. Once the sun got off it this past evening it maintained 55-60 F. Not bad! I'll definitely wait until mid March to sow warm weather crops like tomatoes and peppers, once the daylight hours reach 12 hours, much more ideal for those, rather than our current just above 10. I have started Rouge Grenobloise lettuce, Rocky Top mix lettuce, Bloomsdale Long Standing spinach, peas for salad leaves, mustard greens, collards, and kale for hopefully putting out in early March under cover. I'd love to be picking when most people are planting greens in late March/early April around here. I love the Rouge Grenobloise lettuce, because, not only is it cold tolerant and delicious, but being a Batavian, I can start to harvest lower leaves 4 weeks after it's put out, continuously picking throughout the spring. It's much better than, say, 1 pick from iceberg. Norm, I bet gardening in zone 10 can be nice. I like the break that winter brings for planning, seed ordering, etc., but being able to grow all at this time of year outdoors would certainly have its perks. Of course, the really long summers would probably be a pain, considering how many cool weather crops we eat. Good luck on your garden this year. Mulch would probably be a good idea. Keeping that soil cool would be another benefit of the mulch, which would probably help you grow more cool weather crops if the summer comes on too quickly.

That's a great topic all on its own. I DO prune my healthy roots as follows: - Remove secondary (thin) roots that are exposed, especially towards the top of the caudex. They will burn and atrophy anyway. - The beauty in the adenium root system lies in the natural entanglement of engorged multiple roots. There is always that ugly, potato-looking, fat, single root. THAT has to go! It is not aesthetically pleasing to look at. These I cut off at the soil line and have been fortunate enough to always get gorgeous radial roots as a result. You can do this with younger plants as shown: Maria Elena